1. Field of the Invention
The present invention related to a recording apparatus including an automatic feeding mechanism that picks up one of recording media placed on a feed tray one by one. More particularly, the present invention relates to a recording apparatus including a compact automatic feeding mechanism that has a smart appearance, which is capable of preventing entering from foreign objects and being accommodated in the recording apparatus, and such an automatic feeding mechanism.
Moreover, the present invention relates to a liquid ejection apparatus such as an ink-jet recording apparatus for performing recording onto a recording medium (causing liquid to adhere to a medium) by emitting liquid such as ink from its head, and an automatic feeding mechanism used for that liquid ejection apparatus.
The liquid ejection apparatus in the present application means a recording apparatus which uses an ink-jet type recording head and achieves printing on the recording medium by emitting ink from the recording head, such as a printer, a copier and a facsimile machine, as well as an apparatus which uses a liquid ejection head corresponding to the ink-jet type recording head and emits liquid suitable for an application of the apparatus in place of the ink from the ink ejection head to a medium, thereby causing the liquid to adhere to the medium.
Examples of such a liquid ejection head include a color-material ejection head used in fabrication of color filters for a liquid crystal display or the like, an electrode-material (conductive paste) ejection head used in formation of electrodes for an organic EL display or a field emission display (FED), a biological organic material ejection head used in fabrication of bio-chips, and a sample ejection head as a precise pipette, other than the aforementioned recording head.
2. Description of the Related Art
An ink-jet recording apparatus includes an automatic feeding mechanism that includes a feed tray on which a predetermined number of sheets of paper can be stacked and a hopper that pushes up the paper on the feed tray toward a feed roller. The automatic feeding mechanism is also provided with the feed roller that rotates integrally with its rotational shaft. The automatic feeding mechanism picks up one of recording media in an order from the uppermost one to the lowermost one by using an action of nipping and transferring paper by the feed roller and the hopper and a separating action by a separation pad or a retard roller, and then feeds the recording medium thus picked to a recording position below a recording head.
Such an automatic feeding mechanism is secured to a main body of the recording apparatus, as described in Japanese Patent Application Publication (Laid-Open) No. 10-181905, for example, in such a manner that an opening for a feed operation is always provided between the recording apparatus and the automatic feeding mechanism. Thus, that automatic feeding mechanism has a problem of entering of foreign objects, such as dust or dirt. Moreover, the automatic feeding mechanism is arranged at an angle so as to protrude from the rear of the main body of the recording apparatus. Thus, provision of the automatic feeding mechanism prevents the size reduction of the recording apparatus or improvement of the appearance of the recording apparatus.